Football Manager vs OOTP! Silly??

[jimmysthebestcop]

To Quote Markus from the AI Logic Thread....
(https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...&postcount=167)

"And another thing: Comparing OOTP to FM is just silly. Give us 100+ employees and a budget ten times the size of our current one, then we can talk."

See I think that is part of the problem SI started out small too. And they made an effort to make FM more popular and expand its community. Popularity led to more sales which leads to more staff which leads to the game getting better and more developed.

OOTPD continually decides to not make OOTP more popular in the sports and gaming community. So how could OOTP sell more to get a bigger budget to hire more staff? It simply CANNOT.

OOTP tries to be a "jack of all trades" with layers upon layers of customization. If the hard decisions were based upon making the game popular in the gaming/sports community then OOTP would be much bigger even in the last handful of years.

At it's core level OOTP's design/implementation is holding it from achieving more in the gaming world.

Motorsport Madness is 6 years old, from Indy dev but big producer Sega, it still has more daily Steam users then OOTP 23 does.

Pro Cycling Manager 2022 has more daily steam users as well. I refuse to believe cycling is more popular then baseball. But its a better management game.

FM has about 100x more daily players. It's not even close.

Even Farming Simulator has around 50x time daily players. And OOTP is in the same genre of games.

OOTP has a tremendous loyal following but it is a micro following. Part of what the long time OOTP players like and part of what OOTPd wish for their game is also what holds OOTP back from getting a massive following.

There is nothing wrong with either philosophy but I do think it's weird to not try and make a product as popular as it can be year in and year out over every new version.

[STLCARDINALS547]

This game was not available on Steam for a long time, so many long-time buyers probably don't use Steam - myself included. We really don't know how many people are playing.

[PSUColonel]

I have to admit I don't think comparing the two are silly at all. SI (Collyer Brothers) started FM as Championship Manager in 1992...a year prior to my discovering this sort of genre via FPS Football & Baseball.

FOF started in 1998, and OOTP in 1999.

I discovered CM in 1999, right about the same time I discovered OOTP. There were some other decent text sims at the time such as Sick as a Parrot also.

The truth is, FM's origins has about a 7 year run before OOTP....so it's fair to expect it was going to be a further evolved. Nobody was more excited than I was when I learned of the merger between SI & OOTP. I had always thought to myself, boy, if OOTP could just become a bit more like CM, it would be the perfect game. In 2005 that became a reality. Despite a rough start, you could immediately see the major difference once OOTP 2006 was released. It was evident Markus had learned a lot from working with SI. It was not without a lot of flaws however, and those issues were eventually ironed out in a much more polished OOTP 2007...just in time for us to all learn that SI was jettisoning OOTP from it's lineup.

To me, this is where the two products began taking two very different paths. In the coming five years or so, FM simply went light years ahead of OOTP in terms of it's capabilities. It was starting around 2012-2016 that OOTPd really dug in, and I believe narrowed the gap significantly. Four or five years ago I would have said the two were on equal footing. I mean that in all seriousness.

Then came the news...we are going to be a bigger company and expand our resources because of something called Perfect Team. I remember the developers being completely "giddy" over this, while I was not that excited, but I thought "hey if it can grow the core OOTP product...I'm good with it". To me that was a fair attitude to have.

In the last 5 years, I feel FM has once again pulled way ahead of OOTP...much like it did in the late 2000s'. I do think it's fair to wonder why the size and scope of OOTP hasn't grown. We are not shareholders, so it's not our right to know, but I think it's fair to wonder what the long term plans may be, and perhaps why development resources haven't been expanded.

Now enter COm2Us into the equation. They don't communicate with us (users) and we really have no idea what the direction of things are. It appears resources are being utilized in such a way as to benefit both PT and OOTP simultaneously, which while nice, would limit the scope and growth of the core game...I don't know though...that is my own speculation. But do I think it's fair to compare the two? Yes I do. Sorry Markus, nothing personal, but I do think as a genre, you can compare management games, particularly if they are both sports management.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by STLCARDINALS547

This game was not available on Steam for a long time, so many long-time buyers probably don't use Steam - myself included. We really don't know how many people are playing.

Steam certainly had to help the exposure of OOTP. There's no way it didn't.

[STLCARDINALS547]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Steam certainly had to help the exposure of OOTP. There's no way it didn't.

I agree - it just seems silly to compare the numbers. Those games are certainly predominantly played through Steam and OOTP isn't (just from scanning around forums/reddit/etc.).

[Leo_The_Lip]

With OOTP I get every season in the history of baseball.

With FM, I get one.

Case closed.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by STLCARDINALS547

I agree - it just seems silly to compare the numbers. Those games are certainly predominantly played through Steam and OOTP isn't (just from scanning around forums/reddit/etc.).

I have 7 versions of OOTP on Steam, while I have 12 versions of FM. So yea, FM has roughly the amount of time on Steam compared to OOTP. Even before the advent of Steam though, somehow SI had really pulled ahead as I noted in my post above. I suppose it's because they had a publisher who allowed SI to be SI, and not get heavy handed about it's involvement....with of course the exception of OOTP being under the SI umbrella. For some reason Football Manager has been looked upon as marketable...where OOTP, not as much. Com2Us simply wants perfect team....and the revenue associated with it. I really believe that's a forgone conclusion.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Leo_The_Lip

With OOTP I get every season in the history of baseball.

With FM, I get one.

Case closed.

That's not an argument. You are simply talking about a database, and not management features.

[Bobbyraz49]

Originally Posted by Leo_The_Lip

With OOTP I get every season in the history of baseball.

With FM, I get one.

Case closed.

Insert LIKE button here........ ______________

[oomm]

An example: in my historical setup I am utilizing fictional minor leaguers. According to my game settings, a historical minor leaguer-only has a chance at a MLB career. Basically, I would like to filter stats and rosters according to historical players. The OOTP filter allows this for historical MLBers but not for historical MiLBers.

Now, why on earth is that.

OOTP recognized that players may want to filter rosters and stats of historical players, but did not extend that to include historical minor leaguers. And how long will it continue that I cannot view stats or rosters according to who is basically a real players vs who is not.

The UI is a disaster, according to current software standards. It is clearly neglected in favour of more important and essential work, obviously.

Interesting overview by PSU. I've stated before that the parting with SI was the turning point. The vision now held by OOTP is audacious: to achieve sota graphics generated by database. I mean, imagine: watching a historical game or season etc played out in front of you with sota graphics, where even facial features appear like the historical player. With no-button mashing involved. Long way to go for that, but....

Meanwhile --- yes, management and UI are clearly hazards.

[brotherblues]

FM has a far bigger global market whereas ootp is more niche. It makes sense for FM to invest more to employ more people.

[Nickphillies]

Seems like they are starting to branch out with Content creators. Noticed they sponsored ChizPlays over on YouTube with his last video, but I dunno if the devs are sponsoring the OOTP Content Creators over on YT.

[oomm]

Originally Posted by brotherblues

FM has a far bigger global market whereas ootp is more niche. It makes sense for FM to invest more to employ more people.

I don't know if FM is given to simulating historical seasons and career performances.

See the problem (which the OP pointed out in the previous thread before it got covided) is that OOTP does carry a certain status. It actually simulates pretty accurately historical seasons and careers, and is officially recognized and aligned with MLB. So one might expect such standards to be reflected throughout the entire game. They aren't. An unfortunate result is that OOTP mars its own reputation by inviting players to go deep/deeper into gameplay which can end in frustration and abandonment because the game could not deliver.

[jimmysthebestcop]

Originally Posted by STLCARDINALS547

This game was not available on Steam for a long time, so many long-time buyers probably don't use Steam - myself included. We really don't know how many people are playing.

This is a major point on not taking the popular path. If you want more exposure you go 100% Steam. Or Epic if you are opposed to steam. Or GoG if opposed to both.

Epic was even giving Indy developers huge investment deals to be 100% Epic games.

If you want to be popular you have to get 100% behind a gaming store. Devs and pubs can still give out and sell keys to those stores. But you don't restrict your potential fanbase by having a non affiliated sales structure.

You must "keep up with the Jones". Why go against what the entire video game world is doing? Much smaller games are 100% on the PC store fronts.

The only numbers we have our steams so we must use that as a comparison. We have no idea where the majority of users are.

The decision to sell a separate installer illustrates my point of not taking the popular path. A game will never grow if it's not 100% on a store front solely.

If not steam then try to get epic money.

[PSUColonel]

Well, one number that's not definitive, but certainly interesting...OOTP 23 has been reviewed on STEAM 323 times. FM 2002 has been reviewed 9,848 times. That is more than 30X. I think that is significant because I do think it shows how many more users there likely are for FM. I am not saying it's completely indicative of the number (more than 30X) but I do think it points to the fact FM has that much more of a following. They question is why?

By a lot of standards, FM is just as much of a niche product as OOTP. There are so many other strategy/management games out there that really dwarf FM.

[jimmysthebestcop]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Well, one number that's not definitive, but certainly interesting...OOTP 23 has been reviewed on STEAM 323 times. FM 2002 has been reviewed 9,848 times. That is more than 30X. I think that is significant because I do think it shows how many more users there likely are for FM. I am not saying it's completely indicative of the number (more than 30X) but I do think it points to the fact FM has that much more of a following. They question is why?

By a lot of standards, FM is just as much of a niche product as OOTP. There are so many other strategy/management games out there that really dwarf FM.

Agreed. And sure football is world wide but FM is mostly a UK thing. All of the content creators are British except Zealand.

If you are in the communities the vast majority of users play in England and the premiere league or football English tier system.

If you look at TV viewership the premiere league gets around 3 million while MLB game of the week gets around 2 million. Plus the major market MLB teams get 200k plus viewers on the regional systems for each game.

So I think the overall potential fanbase is a lot closer then we think between MLB and premiere league.

[Cod]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Well, one number that's not definitive, but certainly interesting...OOTP 23 has been reviewed on STEAM 323 times. FM 2002 has been reviewed 9,848 times. That is more than 30X. I think that is significant because I do think it shows how many more users there likely are for FM. I am not saying it's completely indicative of the number (more than 30X) but I do think it points to the fact FM has that much more of a following. They question is why?

Well, using rudimentary numbers, football is just under ten times more popular than baseball. The last numbers I saw had baseball fandom at ~500 million and football fandom at ~4 billion.

Now, take the average age of fans. The average baseball fan is 57 years old while the average football fan is 35. This means football fans are in the millennial sweet spot, filled with tech savy individuals, and make a large chunk of society. I'm a fan of both, but between the average age of each and in no way am I trying to say older people can't be tech savy. I'm strictly looking at the numbers from sources like Statista, MLB, UEFA, etc..

EDIT: Also, according to SI's data from FM2020, the game was played in more than 190 countries. I don't even think that many countries know what baseball is honestly.

[Cod]

Has anyone compared OOTP to any of the Draft Day Sports games from Wolverine Studios? That may be a better comparison, but I don't know.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

That's not an argument. You are simply talking about a database, and not management features.

Since it’s just a database shouldn’t FM also do historical?
Please no excuses for FM because of lack of stats, all of rule changes etc. A good dedicated group of coders would overcome this problem. Well at least they would if they cared and wanted to make their game as “good as it can be”. Ootp coders are able to cover different eras and rules. I guess FM coders just don’t care?

If we’re going to compare then we need to compare the whole package. You can’t pick FM’s strengths and then ignore it’s weakness. Fm outscores ootp in management, 10 to 1? ( you pick the numbers).
Historical? Fm is zero, no matter what score you give ootp:

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Cod

Has anyone compared OOTP to any of the Draft Day Sports games from Wolverine Studios? That may be a better comparison, but I don't know.

I think that's where OOTP blows other games out of the water. It seems to me, FM sits atop of the management games (if management is your priority)
I'd say OOTP is likely a distant second when it comes to actual management gameplay. Obviously it does other things FM doesn't such as historical play, but if management play is the criteria, I think this is fair.

After that, I think there are probably some decent management simulations that can be mentioned in the same breath as OOTP, such as Motorsport Manager, and the Tennis Manager (I forget the name)

I simply have no interest in those due to their chosen sport. The DD football & basketball games look nice, but when you start looking at the AI up close, it just doesn't measure up. OOTP is much better than those I'd say.

I know it sucks constantly being held up to such a high standard such as FM...but that's just the way it is. It's a major compliment to FM, and it's a constant reminder to OOTP of what can/could hopefully be.